Maddow has a serious female woody for Rove.
I’m pretty sure she thinks he might be Satan himself.
Er… yes they are.
Same with Moveon.org and various other corporations that were fined under McCain-Feingold for criticizing political candidates and pissing off FEC bureaucrats.
Non-profits are still corporations and virtually all the corporations if not all those unfairly punished by McCain-Feingold were non-profits.
Because a thing is done badly does not mean that it cannot, or should not, be done at all.
As the law professor John Turley said, the First Amendment does not protect people from the consequences of free speech, but protects the right of people to speak freely even when doing so may have negative consequences.
Obviously many minorities don’t like the fact that white supremacists are able to spew their hatred which can and sometimes does inspire horrific hate crimes both here and abroad.
Similarly many feminists have argued that legalizing pornography and loosening restrictions on what can and can’t be shown has profoundly negative consequences for women with more than a little evidence to back them up.
Hugh Hefner once bragged that he deserved a commission for ever boob job performed in the US and there’s little doubt that the sexualization of women in pop culture is at least partly why eating disorders are so incredibly common amongst young women.
Nevertheless, the First Amendment prevents restrictions on those types of speech regardless of the consequences.
Moreover, since the First Amendment was specifically designed to protect political speech not hate speech or pornography it would be even harder to claim that attempts to influence people to vote for or against a candidate aren’t protected by the First Amendment because they’re so obviously political speech.
In short, when the government restricts the ability of the NRA, Moveon.org, the Sierra Club, the Club for Growth, or the Cranston Teachers Union to lobby for against specific political candidates you are violating the First Amendment.
Maybe as a society we’d be better off with laws restricting the ability of the KKK to disseminate hatred, the ability of the Playboy Corp. to distribute pornography, or the ability of Public Employees Union to agitate in favor or against a candidate.
Grrrr… stupid IPhone.
Meant to add to the last sentence “but the First Amendment prevents us from doing so.”
It isn’t a question of whether or not the rich man has a right to speak his mind. Of course he does. The question is more whether he has the right to speak louder for no other reason than his money.
There are any number of restrictions on free speech, dependent entirely on potential consequences. You have either worded this poorly, or you are wrong. Shouting “Theater!” at a crowded fire, for instance.
You keep trying to present this as a question of popular or unpopular opinions. Liberal stormtroopers crushing free speech beneath their hob-nailed Birkenstocks? Please.
Clearly, we agree that the government cannot favor one set of opinions over another, cannot lend its support and power to those themes it prefers. Why would you accord wealth a privilege you wouldn’t allow government? Is money more trustworthy?
The first group aren’t corporations in the same sense that Ford or Sony is.
You’re correct.
They’re vastly more representative of the groups that spend money agitating in favor or against political candidates or ballot initiatives.
Not in terms of the total money spent, they’re not.
That’s not remotely true.
The vast majority of donations come from non-profit groups.
Why do you think it was at the insistence of Paul Wellstone that McCain-Feingold didn’t exempt non-profits.
Truth, be told, the Fortune 500 companies, I.E. Nike etc., are usually careful about donating money to or against political candidates because they don’t want to anger their customers.
And when the names of donors are not revealed, as is the case with Mr Rove’s civic minded contributors to this Crossroads GPS?
Anyway, if people have been screaming that corporations aren’t people and don’t have the right to freedom of speech why should they get upset when the NAACP, Moveon.org, or similar corporations get fined for passing out leaflets objecting to a Senate candidate or some similar action.
You can’t just say, “well, corporations I like are protected by the First Amendment while corporations I don’t aren’t.”
Sorry, the law and the First Amendment don’t work that way.
Similarly, despite Elucid’s desperate wishes, the First Amendment applies to rich people as well as the rest of us.
Piffle. Never said any different. What I said is in post #106.
You’ve made it quite clear that you support restricting their ability to agitate for or against political candidates.
That means you support limiting their political speech.
If you don’t like the fact that the First Amendment protects political speech than argue for a new amendment.
This is not the first time such principles come into conflict, won’t be the last, either. We are obliged to act with great care, we are not obliged to paralysis. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, nor is it an agreement by the people to hold themselves indentured servants to their betters.
The power to influence elections is the power to make law, and that power justly lies in the hands of the people, each according to his interests and conscience. The ideal is that one persons opinion is equally entitled as anothers.
But if two men are to speak on opposite streetcorners, and one can afford a megaphone bigger than a Chrysler, they are not equal. The have one vote each, one opinion each, but they are not equal in speech. I contend that they should be. Simple enough, though a thorny issue for making into legislation, especially since it involves taking back unjustified political power from the guy who’s quite content with it, thank you very much, keep your distance.
If a man can influence elections more than I simply because he has more money, then his money confers political rights on no other basis than wealth. Hence, our politics can be bought for cash. I think the record shows this is often the case, and once is too many.
If you feel that way, then just as some people are calling for an amendment to burn flag-burning call for an amendment to give the government the power to regulate people’s political speech.
One thing I’d warn you about is you have no idea where it’s going to end.
You’ll notice in this very discussion many of the people calling for preventing corporations from spending money didn’t realize that what they were proposing would affect the Sierra Club and similar groups but instead thought it would only affect “Ford and Sony”.
Is it right and just that a man of wealth has more political power than a man who does not? Simple question, but one you appear to be willing to go to any length to avoid confronting. So, I ask you baldly: is it just?
Is it Constitutional? Oh, my, yes, it certainly is. Our Founders fully intended to fashion a system that placed all significant political power in the hands of men of wealth and property. Knowing, as they did, that only men of wealth and property were suited to such tasks. They were not radical egalitarians, Thom Paine was a radical egalitarian, and they dismissed him and his ideas just as soon as they were no longer useful.
So, I put it to you bluntly, so that we might at least disagree clearly: is it right and just that wealth confers political power? Is that what you want to defend here, or no?
Is it “right and just” that bigots are allowed to encourage hatred and violence against minorities.
We’re told all the time that we have to accept such abuse with all the potential consequences because of the First Amendment.
Beyond that, I’ve never asked if you think it’s “right and just” that I have to put up with all sorts of Islamophobic demagogues, nor have I accused you of being a defender of bigots, so I see no reason for your accusations against me.
Sorry, but if I have to put up with Tom Tancredo talking about bombing Mecca, you’re going to have to put up with Moveon making negative attacks on Mitt Romney.
There is no accusation, only the question, which you evade with the same skill a matador evades the horns. Is it just that a man of wealth has more political power than his fellow citizens? That is all. Is it that you cannot grasp the question or don’t want the question to grasp you?
Is it just? My answer is no, what’s yours?
I’m of mixed feelings on this topic, friend. Yes, a rich “person” can be heard more easily than a poor one, but the issue is mainly about who listens. If the audience gives the most credence to whoever speaks *loudest *instead of whoever speaks best, the responsibility for that lies mainly with the audience.
IOW we need better citizens first.